Conquest of the Americas

The Conquest of the Americas (1521-1720) was an era of the Renaissance in the Americas that saw colonial powers (predominantly Spain) settle down in the New World and aggressively expand their colonies. Explorers mapped the new lands and Spanish conquistadores ("conquerors", soldiers who sought fortune) searched for cities of gold. The native populations were crushed by guns, germs, and steel, and the Spanish conquered all of Central America and the southern United States by 1720.

Background
The Reconquista ended in 1492, allowing Spain to unify almost all of the Iberian Peninsula (except for fellow Christian kingdom Portugal). In the mid-1400s, the Portuguese prince Henry the Navigator launched many expeditions that found new lands that were filled with riches, and young explorers were eager to find rumored cities of gold and riches elsewhere. That year, Queen Isabella I of Spain and King Ferdinand II of Aragon funded the voyage of Christopher Columbus, who located three islands: San Salvador (which he thought was Japan), Hispaniola (which he believed to be China), and Cuba, where he located gold. During this trip, he also found inhabitants already on the islands, which he naimed "Tainos". He returned to the Americas with gold as well as Taino slaves, and the King and Queen decided to send more expeditions to the New World.

In 1515, conquistador Diego Velazquez de Cuellar founded the city of La Habana (present-day Havana, named for chief Habaguanex) on Cuba, and it became the capital of "New Spain", the new colony of the Spanish Empire. From there, Diego and his son Pedro Velazquez and conquistador Hernan Cortes planned to expand their empire, and in 1519, Cortes was sent on a voyage that would change human history.

Landing in Mexico
In 1519, Hernan Cortes landed with an expeditionary force on the coastline of a new continent to be explored. He named a base camp on the shoreline as "Vera Cruz", meaning "True Cross" in Spanish. From there, he imported priests Pablo Nunez and Domingo Franco and merchants Duran Caluela and Ferrand Suarez, and he began to convert the indigenous people of the shoreline to Catholicism. In addition, he contacted friendly natives and his army's numbers rose to 9,200 troops.

Cortes was eager to explore additional lands for New Spain, so he headed inland, where he encountered the city of Tehuacan. The Aztec Empire was strong, but they were afraid of these strangers arriving - a prophecy said that the god Quetzacoatl would come in human form from the eastern shore with a plumed hat (Cortes wore a helmet with a plume on it) and wreak havoc on the humans, after their warrior priests could not sacrifice any more men to appease the gods. Cortes and his army besieged Huitzilihuitl and 5,100 Aztec warriors in the city and used cannon to breach the walls. The Aztec warriors were defeated, and Motelchiuh of Yautepec's 11,210 Aztec troops reinforcing the garrison were also forced back. 11,100 Aztecs were slain and Tehuacan was converted into a Spanish city; Cortes' first conquest. Shortly after, Spanish explorer Alfonso Hortiz negotiated with the emissary Teuch of the Tlaxcalans and agreed on an alliance between Spain and the Tlaxcaltecas.